National

LONDON — The IOC is weary of the doping innuendos being leveled against 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen.
She broke the world record in winning gold in the 400-meter medley, and her performance has been critiqued since, most recently by executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association John Leonard.
Asked Tuesday about the allegations, IOC spokesman Mark Adams would not specifically address Leonard’s comments. But he seemed tired of the talk about Ye.
“I think we need to get real here,” he said during the daily briefing. “I mean, these are world-class athletes competing at the very highest level with records being broken all over the place.”
Adams also said Ye was tested after winning the gold.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Summer Olympics opening ceremony takes place Friday, but the first of 5,535 hours that NBC is showing of the games begins Wednesday with qualifying rounds in women’s soccer. With so many different options, viewers need a road map to make sense of it all.
NBC is promising that every competition in London will be available to U.S. consumers live, with the bulk of them seen online.
The centerpiece of coverage will be NBC’s prime-time, 7 p.m. to midnight on most evenings, with Bob Costas as host. Given the time difference with England, all of the events will be shown on a tape-delayed basis, although particularly rabid fans will have the opportunity to see each of these events online during the day.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Many in this leafy, vibrant college town nicknamed “Happy Valley” worry the temporary evisceration of Penn State’s football program might inflict similar damage on a community that, for years, thrived as fans flocked to home games at the massive football stadium and a far-flung alumni base stayed connected by loyalty — and by checkbook.
Some business operators saw the same silver lining that many survivors do after a near-death accident: They had feared a complete shutdown of Penn State’s football program by the NCAA.
Yet they also know Penn State, and the hotels, eateries and apparel shops that cluster around campus, face rough times ahead.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Olympians should have figured out one thing by now: What they can or cannot wear at the London Games has very little to do with their fashion, marketing sense or patriotism, and a whole lot to do with rules, regulations and, of course, money.
The overseers of the Olympics are protective of their brand and rings — considered one of the most recognizable logos in sports — and what the athletes wear when they’re competing has been tightly regulated, much to the chagrin of some of the games’ stars.
Take Michael Phelps, for example. He recently tweeted his dismay at no longer being allowed to wear a swimming cap bearing miniature American flags on the front and back.

HOUSTON (AP) — The New York Knicks decided that Linsanity would have only a one-season run on Broadway.
Lin is headed back to Houston after the Knicks decided on Tuesday that they wouldn’t match the Rockets’ three-year, $25 million offer for the restricted free agent.
The 23-year-old point guard, who went undrafted out of Harvard, became an international phenomenon and the biggest story in sports during one dazzling month in the Big Apple. But the Knicks decided keeping the show in town was too costly.
“Extremely excited and honored to be a Houston Rocket again!!” Lin posted on his Twitter account.

LONDON (AP) — Apart from a wrong turn by a bus driver, a snarky tweet by a U.S. athlete, a few waterlogged venues and a scramble to find enough security guards, everything is fine at the London Olympics less than two weeks before opening ceremony, organizers insist.
Still, they had to scramble Tuesday to put the best face on an unfolding security debacle — as well as other concerns — afflicting the games, which start in 10 days.
“Let’s put this in proportion,” games chairman Sebastian Coe told reporters. “This has not, nor will it, impact on the safety and security of these games, that of course is our No. 1 priority.”

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — An artist has removed a halo from a mural of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno amid the school's child sex-abuse scandal.

Michael Pilato had put a halo over Paterno's image after the beloved coach's death in January, but said he felt he had to remove it Saturday after a report that Paterno, former university president Graham Spanier and others buried allegations of child sex-abuse against ex-assistant Jerry Sandusky. Paterno's family denies the claim.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michael Jordan said there’s no way Kobe Bryant and this year’s USA Olympic basketball team could’ve beaten the 1992 Dream Team.
Jordan told The Associated Press Thursday that he laughed — “I absolutely laughed” — when hearing Bryant’s comments that the squad training in Las Vegas could take Jordan and company.
Jordan said there’s “no comparison” which team is better.
“For him to compare those two teams is not one of the smarter things he ever could have done,” Jordan said prior playing in a celebrity golf tournament in Charlotte.